"A PROPENSITY FOR SITTING ON STONES" We historians have over the
years followed with fascination the debate on the character of Shaka
King of the Zulus. I am sure you will therefore be interested in the
following document that I have just discovered in the Killie Campbell
Africana Library. (Uncatalogued MSS file SHAKA 17403). It is dated
14 November 1949 and written by the magistrate in Nongoma and goes a
long way to explaining why so many prominent rocks in Natal are
identified by the name of the first Zulu king. This is something that
has fascinated me ever since, as a boy, I was taken for holidays to
Shaka's Rock, on the north coast, and yet went fishing on Shaka's
Rocks near Port Shepstone on the south coast.

The aforesaid Nongoma magistrate, was asked to comment on the
authenticity of a large stone in Stanger (which he had just had
rolled to the vicinity of the Shaka memorial) as one on which Shaka
had sat. The magistrate, who had noted that many rocks "have been
pointed out all over the country as having been sat upon by the king
at one time or another", spoke with Zulu authorities on the subject
who confirmed that Shaka was "fond of sitting on stones".

He then gave an example of this "propensity for sitting on stones"
which is new to me and I am sure you will find significant. This
concerns the great Cave Rock on the southern side of Durban Bay, a
well-known beauty spot until destroyed by dynamite in the Second
World War for fear that it might be too obvious a landmark to passing
U-boats. Apparently, when staying at his Congella military homestead,
near present day KE VIII hospital in Durban, Shaka would march his men
across the Bay (at low tide of course) to the ocean and order them to
fight "the incoming waves as they broke against the rocks. As can be
imagined, these extraordinary exercises were not only strenuous but
also not without danger, and they were watched with obvious interest
and enjoyment by Shaka from a seat of vantage on the Cave Rock
itself."

Apart from being of intrinsic interest, don't you think this new
evidence might be a key to understanding the rise of Shaka and the
mighty Zulu Empire? Rather than searching for old trade routes,
ivory or slaves, evidence of droughts, surely we should map the
sites of prominent rocks? I am increasingly convinced that Shaka's
objective in expanding his empire was an ineluctable search for new
stones on which sit.

I am already finding this line of investigation fruitful and have
begun researching evidence on changes in Zulu warriors' dress at this
time which I find very suggestive and I think might be connected.
Jeff Guy
Professor and Head of Department, Department of History
University of Natal
Private BagX10
Dalbridge 4014
DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA

I think we might add some intertextual elements to this question of stone-sitting
and ocean-fighting. Rider Haggard's *King Solomon's Mines* in places takes elements
from Anglo-Saxon history (the venomous Bead, per Yeats and Sellars) and
places them in the mouths of Kukuana elders, thus projecting an equivalence of
the formative period of English history with Zulu history. Can we read here a
further connection with the invasive king Canute who ordered his courtiers to hold back the tide? Can British historians/archaeologists/tour guides tell us
if the stones on which Cnute sat in this incident have been identified and/ or
commemorated? And going further back, we might recall that the Roman Emperor Caligula
had *his* troops in turn attack the English channel, and he later celebrated
a triumph for his victory, parading a collection of sea-shells as proof of
his prowess.

I am already finding this line of investigation fruitful and have
begun researching evidence on changes in Zulu warriors' dress at this
time which I find very suggestive and I think might be connected.

The subject of the first Zulu emperor also holds endless fascination
for me...oral and written poetry on him was central to my Ph.d
dissertation almost a decade ago and I have done a couple of papers
on the subject since then. I,m therefore deeply intrigued by
the matter of his love for sitting on stones, but surely you cannot
be serious in your concluding remarks: "I am increasingly convinced
that Shaka's objective in expanding his empire was an ineluctable
search for new stones on which [to] sit"? Please tell me you are not.